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Latest Victims of Budget Woes Know Cuts Well

The Hair Care Services unit, in the basement of the Russell Senate Office Building, dates to the early 19th century, when many senators lived in rooming houses with no running water.Credit
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

They are the caretakers of a Congressional institution that has often operated more like a gentleman’s club than a house of government, complete with a gilded members-only dining room, chandeliered sitting parlors and Carrara marble bath tubs.

But the barbers of the United States Senate — along with a shoeshine attendant, a manicurist and the stylists who clip, color, feather and fluff senatorial locks from a basement salon across the street from the Capitol — may finally be losing their coveted status.

Because of the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration, which are forcing government agencies to trim their spending and suspend some programs, the Senate will soon start privatizing its money-losing Hair Care Services unit, a cherished amenity that dates back to the early 19th century, when many senators lived in rooming houses with no running water.

“It’s time,” said Senator John McCain of Arizona, a longtime patron who, like many others in the Capitol, said he recognized the infeasibility of government-subsidized haircuts for senators and their staff.

The privatization of the Senate hair shop, to be phased in over the next several years, is one of the ways that members of Congress are feeling the impact of their decision not to stop $85 billion in cuts to this year’s budget. And while their experience is hardly on par with the hardship of ordinary Americans who are absorbing cuts to programs like tuition assistance and after-school child care, inconveniences like longer lines for their guests at Capitol security and fewer taxpayer-financed trips abroad are starting to gain notice.

“With the sequester, I’ve got a pretty big hole to fill,” said Terrance W. Gainer, the Senate sergeant-at-arms, who oversees various services like computers and the page program. To account for the cuts to his budget, Mr. Gainer said he offered buyouts to his entire staff. So far, four of the nine employees in the hair care unit have told him they would accept, allowing him to replace them with less expensive private contractors who will not collect federal pensions or benefits.

Mr. Gainer said he expected to cut losses in the shop to $100,000 a year from about $500,000 by privatizing. Eventually, he said, he would like to use private contractors exclusively.

“Listen, I readily realize that may not meet the timetable of a lot of people who say, ‘What is the legislative branch doing in the hair care business?’ ” he said, hastening to add that he has other, less clinical considerations like the well-being of his staff. “It’s a service organization that has a 100-year-plus history here. It’s undergone a lot of changes, and I’m slowly but surely trying to get it out of the red.”

Senators used to get free haircuts. But that stopped in 1979, when public pressure over wasteful government spending led the shop to impose a $3.50 fee. But even today, the shop’s full menu of unisex salon services are still far less expensive than many hair establishments around Washington. A basic trim is $20 plus tip, a manicure is $18 and eyebrow trimming runs $15.

There have been efforts over the years to cut losses, but nothing seemed to work. The gold-trimmed personalized shaving mugs that were once given to each senator were eliminated in the 1970s, going the way of other perks like the marble baths. There was once a senators-only barbershop in the basement of the Capitol, but it merged with the ladies’ beauty salon and staff barbershop across the street.

Though few know it, the shop is open to the public. But if a senator comes in and is in a hurry, he has the right to bump your appointment.

Calls for privatization or outright elimination tend to come every decade or so. After a fire destroyed the House barbershop in 1880, members of the lower house were outraged to learn that their colleagues in the Senate were getting free beard trimmings and haircuts.

Senator William Edgar Borah, who represented Idaho for four decades starting in 1907, once rebuked a journalist who tried to shame senators into paying for their own haircuts, saying, “I want the same service that was received here by Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun.”

After Mr. Gingrich became the speaker of the House in 1995, he privatized government-run services like the barbers on the House side of the Capitol, leading to pressure that the Senate do the same. But the senators stood firm.

They united again behind the barbers a few years later after Rick Santorum, then a newly elected senator from Pennsylvania, tried to lead a privatization push.

With its flat fluorescent lighting, teal-green laminated cabinets and aging fixtures, the shop hardly looks like a facility benefiting gloriously from federal largess.

Walk in on any given day and it is not uncommon to see senators — men and women — getting a trim in between meetings. Many of them, as well as President Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., both former senators, have their autographed pictures hanging on the wall.

Strom Thurmond tried to dye away his gray there, though the results in his later years often resembled Crayola’s burnt sienna. “He and his wife disagreed over what color his hair should be,” said Donald A. Ritchie, the Senate historian. “He wanted it darker, she wanted it lighter. So they compromised over a color that looked orange.”

Senator Barbara Boxer’s blond-tinted bob is kept freshly set there. Olympia J. Snowe, the former three-term senator from Maine, used the salon’s stylists to keep her signature dark brown ponytail from getting too long. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, also patronizes the shop, sometimes leaving the shoeshine attendant with a few pairs to work on while he sits down for a trim.

“It costs more than it does in Utah,” said Senator Orrin G. Hatch, who has had his shock of white hair, closely cropped on the sides and neatly parted on top, cut by a Senate barber for 36 years. Mr. Hatch quickly rose to the barbers’ defense when told of the privatization plans.

Mr. Gainer, the sergeant-at-arms, would not permit shop workers to be interviewed.

“Those guys work hard,” Mr. Gainer said. “And you don’t want just anybody playing around with razors and scissors. Especially in this place.”

Correction: March 29, 2013

A picture caption on Thursday with an article about plans to privatize the Senate barbershop misidentified the building on Capitol Hill in which the barbershop is located. It is in the Russell Senate Office Building, not in the Hart Senate Office Building.

A version of this article appears in print on March 28, 2013, on page A17 of the New York edition with the headline: Latest Victims of Budget Woes Know Cuts Well. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe